THE ULSTER DIFFICULTY.

Southland Times, Issue 17059, 4 June 1912, Page 4

THE ULSTER DIFFICULTY.

It has been a matter of extrema difficulty to arrive at an accurate estimate of the extent and depth of Ulster’s feeling against Home Rale. While we have admitted that the Ulster demonstrations were a sufficient cause for very grave anxiety, we have always been disposed to believe that In the event of Home Rule being carried the Ulster men would be prepared to yield to the will of the majority and acknowledge the authority* of the Parliament at Dublin. Newspapers to hand, published after the introduction of the Bill, tend to shake this belief. The London Spectator is one of the most sober of journals. Anything in the nature of sensationalism is abhorrent to it. Yet we find the Spectator saying quite as a matter of accepted fact that if Home Rule is given to Ireland the National Parliament will not be able to collect taxes in Ulster unless it sends soldiers io enforce payment. The Spectator points out that soldiers sent on such a mission would be in duty bound to uphold constitutional authority. No matter how distasteful the task might be, the officers would be compelled, should the worst come to the worst, .to give the command to fire, and the soldiers would have no choice but to carry out their orders. We are quite unable to believe that there is the least exaggeration in the Spectator’s statement, and therefore it must be accepted as beyond doubt that the Ulster men are in deadly earnest when they say that under no circumstances will they submit to an Irish Parliament, and that they will resist its authority with force. In other words, the establishment of Home Rule on the lines proposed in the Bill now before the British Parliament means bloodshed in Ulster, and we take it as a corollary that no Bill is likely to pass which does not exclude Ulster from the control of the Irish Parliament How Home Rule can be successful with the exclusion of Ulster we do not know, for Ulster now produces the bulk of the revenue from Ireland, and would be the main source of revenue for the Irish Government Deprived of Ulster it is doubtful whether any Parliament can place Irish government upon a basis financially sound. Yet it is impossible to contemplate the coercion of Ulster by a military force, and strongly as we sympathise with th« Irish people in their desire for selfgovernment, we have to confess that the Ulster difficulty seems to be insuperable and that there is not at present any ground for hoping that the question which has for so long vexed British politics will he set at rest